Women and Their Children’s Health Study (WaTCH)

The Women and Their Children’s Health (WaTCH) study is researching the short- and long-term physical, mental, and community health effects of the 2010 Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill on women and children who lived in the seven most affected southeastern coastal parishes. 2600 women and 600 children from Southeastern Louisiana are participating in this study. Up to now, very little research has been done to study the long-term health effects from oil spills, and currently, no other local organization is studying the physical and mental health of such a large group of women and their children in Louisiana. The WaTCH study is especially important because the links between oil spill exposures, community resilience, and human health are understudied.

Effects of the oil spill on children’s development and well-being, and how parents and the community can help children cope

Deepwater Horizon Research Consortium

The WaTCH study is a member of the Deepwater Horizon Research Consortium. The Consortium identify personal and community health effects from the DWH oil spill and help identify ways to improve communities’ ability to recover from future disasters. Each of these partnerships focuses on a different aspect of the Gulf oil spill, such as the effects of the spill on the mental and physical health of mothers and children, or its impact on those who fish for a living or consume large amounts of seafood. The National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS), an institute of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), has funded the Deepwater Horizon Research Consortium, a network of community and university partnerships to conduct this important research in the Gulf region.

David Abramson, PhD MPH
Clinical Associate Professor
Director, Program on Population Impacts, Recovery and Resiliency (PiR2)
Global Institute of Public Health
New York Universitydavid.abramson@nyu.edu, (212) 992-6298